One Bloody Thing After Another
by Beguile
Summary: Liz's already terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night gets worse. Red comes to the rescue. Character death. Three-shot…potentially in five parts. Only time will tell.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of NBC and its related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Liz's already terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night gets worse even after Red comes to the rescue. Character death. Three-shot…potentially in five parts. Only time will tell.

Warnings: mentions of violence and brutality. Some spoilery-ish things.

Author's Notes: a story that's been circling my brain for a while that I finally decided to put on a page. It's set shortly after "The Good Samaritan Killer", just after Red resurfaces, but as long as you're up on the whole Tom-Keen-is-a-Secret-Agent-of-Some-Kind thing and temporarily forget the events of "Berlin" pts. 1 and 2, you should be good to go!

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One Bloody Thing After Another

Prologue

There was blood under her fingernails. Liz didn't know how it got there. She had stayed in the house long enough to take stock of her surroundings, not nearly long enough to see the full extent of the carnage, and then slipped out the back just as the first of the police cruisers arrived. Someone had called for all the emergency vehicles and, really, Liz couldn't blame them. A human being's worth of gore had been strewn through two rooms in the house. No forensics team in DC had enough manpower to tackle the mess, and very few cops had the stones to take down the kind of menace that ground people into slurry.

Liz marveled at her level of detachment from the whole situation: her use of objective rhetoric to obscure the details, her application of logic to avoid an emotional reaction. She had reverted straight into the role of investigating officer even though she was the primary suspect. Even though there was a person lying in puddles and heaps through their home.

A sudden flash of _the crime scene_ – objective rhetoric again: hold it together, Liz – was nearly her undoing. She stopped between streetlights and caught her head in her bloody hands. She told herself all the necessary lies to keep on walking: that everything was going to be alright, that she just needed some time to get her story straight, that the FBI would believe her no matter how much blood they found under her nails. No matter how much of her they found in the messy remains at the house.

Liz surveyed the street quickly upon recovery, expecting the cavalry and finding herself in non-threatening company. There was a small cluster of pedestrians standing outside the pub at the street corner and a few parked cars dotting the curbs. Liz couldn't tell if the sirens she heard were audible or stuck on an endless loop inside her head. Either way, they sounded far enough to not be a concern for the time being.

She would find a place to take cover.

She would get in contact with someone at the office.

She would definitely be placed under arrest.

Her gait stuttered; Liz nearly keeled into the pavement. The walls she had built around her emotions were crumbling. Try as she might to hold it together, Liz was as torn up as _him_. She fell into the nearby wall, clutching at the brick with her bloody fingers, and stood, struggling to breathe against the coffin-like tautness of the atmosphere. She forced herself to think about all the necessities her current status demanded. Shelter first. Liz needed somewhere to hide.

And fast. The traffic was starting to slow. One car in particular was pulling up to the curb nearest her. Liz made sure her hair was still tucked under her coat and started walking again. Her adrenaline spiked for the umpteenth time that night. Finally, her legs stopped shaking. She was able to walk straight: calm, cool, composed. Just another twenty-something out for a night on the town. Meeting friends at the pub for a drink. Not a murder suspect psychopath whose husband…

A hand traced across the back of her wrist. Liz lashed out, scalded from the contact and the sudden proximity. Red caught her before she could land a blow. "You need to get rid of your cell phone, Lizzie."

"You need to let go of me," she snapped. He did as he was told, revealing his open and empty palms in a rare show of peace. The gesture caused Liz to wince. Pain was starting to register from somewhere inside her, somewhere deep and unknown, buried beneath miles of academy training and careful disassociation. "Do you know what's happened? Did you see my house?"

She always knew the answers to questions like that with Red. Of course he knew: Red always knew. He was ten steps ahead on his worst days. Tonight though, he didn't taunt her with his knowledge. Tonight, Red met her with calm understanding. "That's why I'm telling you to get rid of your cell phone. I found you far too easily."

Liz hadn't thought of that. Why? Why wouldn't she think to get rid of her phone? "I don't know," she confessed, answering the millions of questions he hadn't asked yet. There were tremors in her voice, pithy aftershocks from the cataclysm she'd witnessed. She pulled her cell phone from her back pocket. Her fingers were uncooperative. They kept sliding over the plastic and failing to open the latches. Liz wasn't sure how long Red had kept his hand outstretched for, but he was waiting when she finally gave up. She handed him the phone and watched him make quick work of the SIM card and battery.

The pain in her chest grew in intensity as she watched him. Gradually, Liz became aware that she had forgotten more than just her cell phone. She had overlooked or otherwise lost a whole catalogue of information. All the evidence from the house, the mental map she had made of the fight, the way he looked amidst all the blood: gone. All gone. And Liz didn't really want to know where it all went.

"I want you to come with me, Lizzie. I'm going to take you somewhere safe," Red assured her.

"It's all gone," she felt tears welling up in her eyes.

"You're in shock."

Dembe appeared behind him. "Cruisers are heading this way," he informed them.

Red appeared not to hear him. All his focus was on her. "Lizzie, we have to go."

"I need to figure this out," she tried to keep walking. Red kept her wrist lightly restrained in his hand. "I need to know who did that. I need to know who killed him."

"I can get answers for you," Red told her, "but I can't do that from here. You need to come with me, Lizzie. Now."

He had never said her name that many times before in a conversation. The way her said it – free from condescension – worked to clear her head and kept the pain in her chest at bay. Liz found herself nodding. She found herself walking with him toward the open door of the car. She found herself leaning on him more and more as she walked until the seat caught her and he shut the door. Liz held her own self at arm's length now, because if Red was here it was as bad as she forgot. Worse even. She didn't need to remember to know that.

"I should turn myself in," Liz commented to the nighttime outside her closed window.

"Oh, no, Lizzie," Red said from his seat next to her. She hadn't heard him get in, but there he was, sitting comfortably, adjusting the temperature in the backseat to something that should have been uncomfortably hot. Liz only realized then that she was shivering, and her bloody fingers had gone numb. "You were right to run."

Her chest ached whenever she tried to breathe. The hot air swirling in the cab caused her to unwind. Dembe eased the car away from the curb, and for some reason, that was enough to make her finally weep. Something about the relief of escape made the knowledge that she could never get far enough away from tonight sharper, more refined. The pain in her chest blossomed into agony. "He's gone," Liz buried her face in her hands. "He was in pieces and I…I didn't do it. I don't know...I don't remember. Maybe I…?"

"No, Lizzie," Red's hands – murderer's hands, monster's hands – were strong under her arms. He held her upright and shifted on the seat to catch her against his shoulder. "Lizzie, you didn't kill your husband."

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Happy reading!


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of NBC and its related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Liz's already terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night gets worse even after Red comes to the rescue. Character death. Three-shot…potentially in five parts. Only time will tell.

Warnings: mentions of violence and brutality. Some spoilery-ish things.

Author's Notes: WHEW! This chapter was a collection of false starts, deletions, omissions, and lengthy breaks that erred on the side of procrastination. It's also about three times as long as I anticipated. Nevertheless, I present it to you, dear readers, to enjoy. I appreciate your feedback so far – and would like to apologize for implying that Liz was in her twenties in the prologue. I was describing the way people would perceive her if they saw her walking, and I am afraid that was misconstrued. I do hope the story lives up to the opening. Cheers!

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Chapter One

The tears gave way to uncontrollable shaking. Liz's entire body was in mourning from her bones all the way to her skin. Try as she might to pull herself together, to form a thicker skin, to stiff-upper-lip this whole awful night, she was still a shuddering mess.

Red gave no indication he either minded or cared. He kept one hand on her elbow for balance, one hand on her back for support, and he didn't let go until she forced herself against the seat back insisting, angrily, "I'm fine! I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Lizzie."

"Yeah, well, sitting here crying isn't going to solve anything," but her body wasn't listening to her any more than Red was. Liz had finally come across the one pain she couldn't hide, a pain that made her blood run cold and breaths go ragged. She couldn't hold herself tight enough to loosen the tension in her shoulders or stop the spasms that were wracking her. The heat only made her chill more pronounced. When Red moved for her again, Liz changed the subject, "Where are we going?"

"The FBI and other law enforcement constituents may or may not have received an anonymous tip that you had been spotted in some of Washington's seedier locales," Red replied in his usual, measured tone. "Meanwhile, we will be settling in somewhere safe tonight."

"We're going to a hotel," Liz decoded. She looked out the window to try and get her bearings, but it was no use. Her brain refused to hold onto the buildings they passed; she looked at the street signs and couldn't read them. Frustrated, Liz finally settled her gaze inside the car and tried to track their movements. Even that slipped away from her though: one second she was firmly planted in her rebelling body, the next she felt like she was miles away, watching herself on a movie screen. Her life was a case file she'd read or a crime scene photo she'd seen.

Red's hand came to rest on her shoulder. "You'll breathe easier if you let go of your chest, Lizzie."

"I can't let go of my chest." She was letting go of everything else but not that.

"Why?"

Liz didn't have an answer. Trying to hide her distress was a lame excuse: they both knew she was in shock. Red no doubt had a stronger grasp on the situation too. Liz's focus came in fits and spurts. She also knew that holding herself wasn't generating any kind of heat. Her response, then, was purely psychological. She exhaled heavily, "Because I'm having an emotional breakdown."

"Tell me what you're feeling physically," he prompted.

"I'm disoriented. I'm disassociating. I can't seem to retain new information. I feel cold, even though…even though it's not possible."

"It not being possible and it not being true are two different things."

He was coddling her. Why was he coddling her? Liz glared at him. "You do this. When I'm overwhelmed or anxious, you ask me to explain myself. To run a profile. Why?"

"Profiling is cathartic for you," Red shot a pointed glance towards her waist. Liz's arms had started to loosen, and her shaking had started to subside. "I need you to be calm. You need you to be calm. Better you run profiles than give yourself a full blown episode."

Liz felt her shaking start back up again. "If I calm down, I'll start to remember, won't I?"

"Yes, and you need to remember what you saw eventually."

"I'm not sure I want to remember," she said quietly, terrified to hear the words coming out of her mouth. She thumbed her scar, but the small flecks of blood she peeled off disturbed her too much to continue. "Who would do something like that? Who _could_ do something like that?"

The car came to a halt. "Here we are," Red declared, throwing open his door.

Light flooded her window. Liz pulled away on instinct. They had parked outside of one of Red's lavish hotels: an ancient stone building with wide windows and glass doors proudly displaying an immaculate lobby. The foyer was empty. Liz identified several blurs, far off, as hotel staff. They were joined, no doubt, by a small army of security cameras just waiting to capture her image on film.

Red opened the car door for her. Liz shrank back into her seat. "You can't expect me to just walk in there. I'm the prime suspect in a murder."

"I'm fourth on the FBI's Most Wanted list," Red reminded her.

"I have blood on my hands."

"You'll keep your hands in your pockets."

He made it sound so easy; Liz choked back any further protestations. She stared at her bloody fingers, curling and straitening them on her lap. Tom was dead. Someone murdered him. She should have handed herself in.

"Lizzie," even speaking as quietly as he did, Red still commanded attention. Liz had to look at him. "I promised you that I would do everything in my power to protect you. I know you don't trust me, but I'm asking you to trust that."

She was tearing up again. Images of Tom – what was left of him – flashed through her brain. She tore her eyes from her hands and looked up at Red. "I don't trust you. Or them."

"That's my girl," he flashed her a small, sad smile, "but you should trust that I will see to your safety, Lizzie. We're both fugitives now: I would hardly choose a lodging with a firm loyalty to law enforcement."

He had a point: any place that was dangerous to her was dangerous to him for different reasons. They were finally on the same side of the law. Liz hoped that wouldn't be for long. She tucked her hands in her pockets, untucked them, played with her fingernails. "You wanted me to profile when I'm scared? Well, I'm scared. I don't think I can walk through that lobby, Red. I haven't stopped trembling since I left my house."

"What bothers you about this place?"

Liz didn't know where to begin. Cataloguing her feelings was difficult at the best of times. Now, she was at a loss. There wasn't a word for fear that she knew to describe the creeping, crawling sensations working their way under her skin. It was much easier to find words for what she was afraid of: "This place it too exposed. The windows, the lights…I feel like I'm on display."

"One of the best disguises is to appear as if you have nothing to hide."

"I have plenty to hide," Liz muttered. She knew how terrified she must look from the expression on Red's face. "And I have things to hide from."

"Disguise it is then," Red lifted his fedora from his head with a flourish. He slid the hat over Liz's scalp, drawing it low over her brow to conceal her face.

Liz didn't know what to say. The hat made all the words jumble in her brain. She looked up at Red, he looked back at her, and for a split second she saw the old Raymond Reddington. The father, the husband, the patriot, the _man_ – not the monster. The moment passed though, like the moment always did, and Liz found herself being attended to by the concierge of crime. The lights from the awning no longer reached her face. She gripped the door frame for support and pulled herself out of the vehicle.

"Eventually you'll have to stop protecting me," she informed Red as he led her into the hotel.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," he replied.

* * *

The hotel staff dealt exclusively with Red, but Liz couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. What minimal bravado she'd felt in the car was gone the second she passed into the lobby. Her body was wrecked with a cold sweat. She felt the security cameras protruding against her spine and was convinced, right up until their departure, that a lone patron strolling through the library was a UC officer come to arrest her.

Nothing happened though. Red received the key without question, thanked the young lady behind the counter, and dismissed the services of the concierge. He gently ushered List towards the elevator. She was loathe to admit that he stabilized her then, because her knees refused to stop rattling until the elevator doors closed behind them.

"Almost there," he squeezed her arm comfortingly. His voice, low as it was, still hadn't lost that pleasant lilt: as if this was another case, another grand adventure. As if it was every day that he pulled Little Lizzie out of the fire.

She forced her finger off the burn on her palm. Red was not pulling her out of the fire. He had resources; she needed answers. Their relationship was simple and terminal.

Dembe was standing outside their room by the time they arrived. "It's clear," he confirmed before opening the door.

"Thank you, Dembe," Red gestured for Lizzie to go first. "After you."

The lavish sitting room was a stark contrast to the chaos she had left behind at her marital home, not to mention the dark Washington streets she had been traversing until Red found her. Liz's self-loathing increased. Her husband was dead – murdered most brutally – and she was going to be hiding out in the lap of luxury. She was going to sit on richly upholstered couches surrounded by modern art, listening as Red regaled her with tales of the criminally insane. And she would enjoy the challenge of meeting her husband's killer's psychology no matter how brutal the psychology was.

The door locked behind her. She spun to face Red. "I want a name. I want a name and a location, and I want them right now."

"Lizzie, I will give you the keys to the kingdom. I will make any resource available to you."

"I feel like there's a 'but' coming…"

Red shook his head. "Tomorrow."

Liz stood her ground, "Now."

"No."

"Red-"

"Tell me what you saw at your house, Lizzie," he dared her. "Can you tell me what you saw at your house? Can you tell me about Tom: what he looked like? What condition his body was in?"

Liz's stomach wrapped itself into a ball. Her heart felt like it was wrapped in a fist. She remembered the way she felt finding Tom better than she remembered how he looked. Still, she forced herself to play along, knowing Red was just looking to strike a nerve. "Tom's body was lying in the dining room to the left of the table. He had…" memory stole the breath from her lungs. Liz forced herself to keep speaking. "He had crawled from the living room. That's where the attack started."

"What did the spatter look like?"

"What?" she was too busy analyzing the blood on the floor.

"The blood on the walls, Lizzie. What did it look like? What weapon was used?"

She couldn't breathe and think at the same time. "The spatter was huge."

"Throughout?"

"I don't know."

"What about Tom's body? What was the condition of his body?"

Bile rose in her throat. Her brain was filled with the image of a lumpy, bloody mess. "He'd been butchered."

"I know a lot of butchers, Lizzie. You'll have to be more specific."

She couldn't go on, not with him interrogating her. Not about Tom. "Look, I know what you're trying to do, but I can do this! I want his killer!"

Red nodded, "Tomorrow. You are not in any state to be chasing butchers tonight."

"You know who this is, don't you?" Liz demanded. "You're not testing me. You're just not telling me."

He didn't argue with her. "Are you going to shove another pen in my neck, Lizzie? Carve up my carotid until I give you a list of underworld butchers who like to tear a person to pieces?" Red could deliver his grocery list in the same neutral tone. "I promise to help you. I will do everything in my power to help you find the person who did this. But we will do it tomorrow when you have had a chance to recover."

Liz didn't know what to tell him. "There is no recovering from what I saw, Red."

"All the more reason for us to stay in tonight," he replied. "I think a bath might be in order, followed by some room service."

She looked at her hands. The blood had been worn away digging her hands in and out of her pockets, but Liz still felt an obligation to her profession. "Do you have a camera?"

"Looking to mark the moment?"

"Catalogue evidence," she held up her hands.

"You won't need to do that. By this time tomorrow, your name will be cleared of all wrongdoing."

She fingered her scar vigorously. The desperate need to _get out there and find this guy_ was fueling her jitters now more than shock ever could. "You swear you will give me answers tomorrow?"

"You have my word," Red nodded.

Liz sucked back another sob. It was so unfair – him dying alone in agony, her living in comfort – and nothing made that right. Nothing would ever make that right. Red could serve Tom's killer up in the same condition and Liz would still feel the cruel injustice of her husband's absence. She gazed at his blood on her fingers, the last pieces she had of Tom, and couldn't fathom washing them off.

Red crossed the room towards her slowly. Upon reaching her, he carefully lifted her hands in his to chest height. "Whatever you found in that house, Lizzie, whatever you're carrying with you, that's not Tom."

"I know."

"Tom was gone long before you came home."

"I know," she choked back tears.

"Washing this away-"

"I know," Liz pulled her hands away. The tears stopped as quickly as they'd come. Even though her legs were shaking, even though her body still felt like ice, Liz was starting to remember how to bury her pain, her fear, her anguish behind a mask of bitter resilience. "I know."

Red left it at that.

* * *

There was more than just blood on her hands. Liz found patches on her coat, along the hems of her slacks, and in the treads of her boots. She had transferred some onto the back of her neck and into her hair when she disguised herself. The handle of her gun was caked in it. Liz didn't even remember arming herself, let alone how she got so much blood there. She checked her clip and counted the rounds. None of them had been fired.

The night still didn't exist in her memory, not in any knowable or understandable form. The discovery of What Was Left of Tom set Liz painfully adrift, and even though she didn't want to remember – not yet, not when the pain of his death was so fresh, raw, and daunting – Liz tried to piece together a chronology. She got home from work at five and called Tom, leaving a voice mail when he didn't pick up. Ate dinner at six and called him again, leaving an angrier voice mail. She called him once more by seven o'clock, and this time his phone didn't ring. Liz ended up listening to his outgoing message for the umpteenth time and hanging up in disgust. Hating him and her in equal measure, Liz left the house around eight to get out, to get away.

She came back at nine. Climbed the stairs immediately to go get changed. Failed to notice Tom's suitcase in the darkened living room.

Or had she? Liz didn't want to believe that she had missed something like that, but anger gave her tunnel-vision. She could have marched right past his bag for the upstairs from how pissed off she had been that they were fighting and he wasn't bothering to talk to her. She might have stayed upstairs all night if the smell hadn't found her.

Liz remembered walking down the stairs and finding Tom's bags. She remembered grabbing her service weapon from her holster. No, wait: her gun was in the bedroom. She had to grab it before coming downstairs. She saw the bags and called for Tom, but there was no reply. The house was eerily silent. Two giant stains of what looked like ink carved a macabre path up the wall in front of her. Liz followed the sight of her gun into the dining room, threw the light switch, and…

And.

And Tom was dead.

She turned the taps to scalding and hopped into the shower. Red was right, damn him. No good would come of remembering this tonight. Liz concerned herself with burning the blood from her body instead, trying and failing to draw a productive comparison between being boiled to being flayed.

When she emerged, Liz looked bloodier than before. Fitting, since she felt bloodier too.

The smell of her clothes triggered another bout of tears, tear Liz fought with all her remaining strength to hold back. She wrapped them in a tight ball and tossed them against the door. "Lizzie?" Red asked in response.

Still coddling her. Liz hated being coddled. She wiped away her tears. "I'm fine."

He didn't believe her. "There are clean clothes for you in the bedroom. I'll stand with Dembe in the hallway. Knock when you're decent."

She just barely heard the sounds of the door latching behind him.

The emptiness of the hotel room prompted yet another round of weeping. For once, Liz's outsides perfectly matched her insides. The world was as hollow as she felt. She scrubbed her scarred palm along her thigh and held her ringed hand to her face, lost in thought. Wondering what her last words to Tom were. Wondering what his last thoughts were. Wondering if they had forgiven each other or just decided that fighting wasn't worth it in the end.

He died without knowing that she loved him; she lived without knowing if he loved her back. And if what Red insisted was true, Tom may never have loved her in the first place.

Liz lifted her gaze from the floor towards where Red ought to be standing guard with Dembe. He had come by in the absolute nick of time to save her. Granted, Red _always_ arrived in the nick of time, swooping in like St. Jude saving Little Lizzie the Lost Cause. Tonight she just felt the coincidence was glaring. He knew almost as quickly as the police did that she was on the run. Whoever tipped off the police must have, inadvertently or otherwise, tipped off Red too.

Unless Red didn't need to be tipped off. Liz drew a shuddering breath. Unless Red knew that Tom was going to end up dead. He certainly knew more than he was letting on, as always.

She was working on a theory as she picked up her service weapon. By the time she reached the bedroom and slipped into the silk pyjamas folded on the bed, Liz had drawn a conclusion. When she took her seat in front of the room's main entrance, she had made her decision.

"I'm decent," Liz called.

Red entered. He noticed the gun at her side immediately and closed the door.

"Lizzie."

"Red," she fingered her weapon. "I'm only going to ask this once, and the only answer I want to hear is a 'yes' or a 'no', okay?"

He locked eyes with her. For a second, Liz thought she saw Raymond the man in his eyes, but she was happy when the monster decided to join her instead. She could shoot Red. She would shoot Red. "Okay," he said, a triple-dog dare if she ever heard one.

Liz drew her weapon into her lap threateningly, issuing a triple-dog dare of her own. "Red," she switched the safety off, "did you have my husband killed?"

* * *

Happy reading!


	3. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of NBC and its related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Liz's already terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night gets worse even after Red comes to the rescue. Character death. Three-shot…potentially in five parts. Only time will tell.

Warnings: mentions of violence and brutality. Some spoilery-ish things.

Author's Notes: I included a little bit of fluff at the end of this chapter to soften the blow from the previous installment. I'm overwhelmed by the response: thank you. Please enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Two

Red didn't hesitate, "No."

Liz still kept a tight grip on her gun. "Why should I believe you?"

"May I say more than yes or no?" he wasn't looking at the weapon anymore, assured, somehow, that Liz wasn't going to shoot him. She remained unconvinced. "Lizzie, nothing I have ever told you has been a lie."

"But nothing you've ever told me has been the whole truth!" she raised her gun and pointed it at his chest. "Did you have my husband killed?"

Red stared her straight in the eyes. "If I truly wanted your husband dead, Lizzie, I would have killed him myself a long time ago."

Wretched as the thought was – and Liz thought she might shoot him just for saying so – she couldn't deny Red was being honest with her. He had known enough about Tom to at least want him hurt, if not kill him. Liz pulled her gun back into her lap. She switched the safety back on. "Who did this, Red?"

He didn't want to tell her. Red, who regaled her with profiles of ruthless minds and agencies, who shared intimate details of their deranged practices including chemically disposing of bodies, murder for profit, and human trafficking, was reluctant to describe the type of monster that butchered her husband. Liz felt a cold stab of fear in her chest where her sadness used to be. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Liz begged him, "Who did this."

"They're called the Keres," Red replied, "a ragtag band of psychopaths and psychotics, most of them low functioning, recruited from asylums for their creative and messy methods of human dispatch."

Liz struggled to keep up. Her brain was occupied with flashbacks to home, to Tom's mutilated corpse, to the bloodstains creeping up the wall. "Who manages them?"

"The CIA started the program about thirty years ago. Officially, it's been disbanded, but unofficially, it was buried like so many other Company initiatives. Like I told your colleague Agent Malik: beauty and treachery. That's the Agency in a nutshell."

"Someone hired a psychopath to mutilate my husband," Liz strained to breathe against fear's vicelike grip around her chest.

"No," Red promised her. "Someone hired a psychopath to mutilate the agent posing as your husband."

Anger provided her immediate respite from the shock. "My husband was not a double agent. He was not a spy or an assassin or a criminal. My husband was set up! And now he's dead because of me and whatever connection I have to you!"

"Nobody would hire a member of the Keres to kill a civilian, Lizzie, even if they are the husband of one of my allies. You saw the mess at your house. The cost of exposure is too great, to say nothing of the financial cost of the Keres's contract. These are not lowlife thugs looking to make a quick buck or former military types conditioned into killing. These aren't even the sophisticated assassins churned out by the CIA. The Keres are born butchers. They need to tear people apart. You only hire a killer like that for large game."

"I don't believe you." She didn't want to believe him.

"You wanted to know the truth about your husband. I wanted you to learn the truth by yourself."

"Why? You said you would do anything to protect me."

"Your husband has just been butchered by a psychopath, and you still don't believe what I'm telling you," Red patted the top of the arm chair. "Not only did I know you would be suspicious, I also knew that, if I told you outright, you would alienate yourself from me. I don't want that to happen, Lizzie."

Liz ignored him. Well, she tried to ignore him. Red's words had a way of permeating her defences like no one else's, probably because of his insistence on telling her the awful truth. "Which one of these Keres killed Tom?"

"I'm not sure yet. Each of them have a different modus operandi, a different pathology, though they all enjoy leaving a mark," Red moved slowly, deliberately, towards the couch. Liz continued touching her gun, reassuring herself that she could still shoot him. He took his seat as far from her as possible. When he was comfortable, when the silence was deafening, he spoke, "I need you to tell me how he looked, Lizzie. I need to know what created the blood spatter, what weapons you found lying around: everything. We find the Keres, we find the person who hired them."

Flashbulbs went off in Liz's mind. She could see the house. She could see the blood. She could see Tom. They were all independent images though, pictures from different crime scenes that didn't fit together no matter how hard she thought about them.

Red's hand came to rest on hers. Not to restrain her: if she was going to shoot him, she would shoot him, and he would let her. Red was trying to impart comfort, foreign as the concept was to him. "This is why I didn't want to talk tonight. You're in no state to be facing down menaces who hire the Keres."

"That'll just make them harder to find."

"The Keres's psychologies don't allow for movement. They're largely sedentary. The Handlers keep some of them imprisoned when they're not on a job. Finding Tom's murderer isn't going to be difficult once you can identify the method."

"What if I can't?" Liz snapped. "My memory is in pieces, Red. Everything's a blur from the moment I found him until you picked me up."

"I need you to understand the kind of mind that went after Tom. I don't need you to understand that mind now," he squeezed her hand to summon back her thoughts. Liz was already trying to formulate a profile in response to the large pool of red splattered across her living and dining rooms. She followed Red's touch back to the hotel room. His lips took on the faint makings of a very sympathetic smile. "I think some room service is in order," he reached for the phone.

"I'm not hungry," Liz replied.

"Do you want to meet your husband's killer?"

"I want to tear my husband's killer and the person who hired them apart."

"Well, I speak from experience, Lizzie: never commit murder on an empty stomach," his demeanor immediately shifted into charming. "Hello – I want one of everything. My companion tonight has a killer appetite."

* * *

Food had a way of filling in the crevices left by grief. Liz wasn't lying when she told Red she wasn't hungry, but she was guilty and saddened and traumatized enough that once she started, she didn't stop. Not until every last empty space inside of her was filled up. She wasn't even hungry for murder afterwards. Instead, Liz felt numb. Numb and protected. Her chills subsided, and she settled into a comfortable silence with Red.

She didn't even notice he'd moved until he was standing next to her: for how long was anyone's guess. "You should go to bed, Lizzie."

Gentleness was a strangely wielded trait for Raymond Reddington. He was a monster. He was absolutely a monster. Yet Liz had to work hard, most days, to remind herself of that. His conduct softened in her presence. HIs voice was especially telling: the way he could rumble off tender syllables, like a thunder storm that's wandered miles away. Tonight she felt held by him, was held by him, in fact. Red had a hand on her lower back and shepherded her away from the sitting room. Liz was too exhausted to give the oddness of the moment a second thought. She wandered her way through the dimly lit room in a daze.

The bed had already been pulled down. Red had cleared a Liz-size space on one side. She stopped short, paralyzed by the sight of silk sheets and down pillows, by the faint scent of rose on the air, by the monogrammed pyjamas. By the hand on her lower back. All of it stood in stark contrast to the body bag Tom was lying in, the morgue that he would sleep in tonight. The blood on the walls had been thick enough to taste. Liz stifled a sob. "He suffered, didn't he?"

Red didn't want to tell her. He settled on a palatable version of the wretched truth. "The Keres are hired for their sadistic tendencies."

She started to weep again, still standing. The numbness was gone. Liz felt swallowed whole. She didn't protest in the slightest when Red drew her into his arms for the second time that night and held her. "I don't know who he was or what he did," she admitted, "but nobody deserves that."

Red rubbed a hand over her back, speaking lowly into her ear, "Precisely why killers like the Keres exist, Lizzie."

"Who would hire someone like that?"

"Someone nightmares are made of," Red replied. He hugged her tighter.

Liz allowed herself to be held longer than she would have under happier circumstances. Red felt safe, not in the least because of how dangerous he was. When she did withdraw, he let her, again gesturing for the bed. "Tom's body is what nightmares are made of," she commented, dropping down onto the mattress. She meant to stay seated and wait for Reddington to leave the room, but she couldn't hold herself upright any longer. Liz was laying down, head ensconced in the giant pillow.

And Red was tucking her in: out of guilt, maybe? He had dislike Tom before they met, obviously.

Like so many things, Liz felt compelled to know even if she didn't want to: "Have you ever hired a member of the Keres?"

Red was forthright, so she knew the answer was no. He didn't allow for any misinterpretation though. "My disdain is my own, Lizzie," he tugged the blankets free around her feet without being asked. He curled the edges of the blanket around her shoulders, too, just the way she liked it. "I don't believe in paying someone else for a kind of cruelty that I can provide."

"You know how to tuck me in," she interrupted him.

"Hmm, so I do," back to his glib tones. Liz had stumbled once again onto a topic Reddington did not wish to discuss. He placed one hand on the side of either shoulder and stared down at her on the bed. "Do you have everything you need, Lizzie?"

"I'll be fine: thank you, Reddington." She used his full surname to indicate that she could be just as glib.

Red didn't bite. "Dembe and I will settle in just outside the room. If you need anything..."

"I'm an adult," though Liz didn't feel like one in the slightest. She felt oversized for the bed and under-prepared for the situation she had been thrown into.

"I am sorry about Tom's death."

She scoffed, "No, you're not…but thank you for saying so."

Red nodded curtly, happy to be understood. He was sorry for the effect it was having on her, not on Tom. "Good night, Lizzie."

"Good night, Red."

He rose and switched off the bedside lamp. Liz didn't hear him close the door; she was already asleep.

* * *

Liz should have expected the nightmares.

Her dreams of the fire were horrifyingly clear. She could recall the individual odours of burning items. Ghosts of her father's hands clung to her spine so long as she didn't move upon waking. She also sweated buckets from the heat of the flames.

Memories of Tom had felt so distant, though, that Liz didn't anticipate reliving them with the same degree of clarity. Instead, she found herself making a slow march through her bloody living room. She tracked Tom's progression with her gun, half-expecting to find some creature lurking in the dark.

She stopped at his corpse. Her subconscious was fixated. Liz relived the entirety of his mutilation in graphic detail. She could make out the sweep of blades across his face and shoulders. Large heaps of flesh dotted the floor. His clothing was torn in long ribbons, and the skin underneath was raked with more knife wounds. He fought back but not well, dying poorly at the knife of a deranged psychopath.

In the nightmare, Liz reconstructed the fight. She backtracked through the blood, Tom's body following, his flesh reattaching itself as he went. The first blow came from his side: Liz watched his attacker leap out of the dark and slash him quickly several times. The two fell into an uncoordinated melee. Except that wouldn't account for the blood spatter. Liz reconsidered, and she found that both Tom and his assailant had to have coordinated their movements. It had to be a fair fight in terms of technique for the spatter to remain so contained.

"Stop," Liz begged, but she couldn't move to intervene. She could only watch as Tom's face was torn open, as his body tumbled in pieces to the floor, as a knife made a home in him again and again.

Her word was like a chant: _stopstopstopstopstop._ Tom's heart eventually did. And then it was back to the beginning again.

She pulled the covers over her eyes to hide it, but the image stayed with her. Tom stayed with her. Sometimes he called out for her. Sometimes he reached for her. Sometimes their fingers touched, and she almost pulled him from harm's way. Nevertheless, the knife always found him, and Liz retreated into bed like she when she was a girl.

Dad's hand came to rest against her mid-back. "Shh…Lizzie," he lifted her onto his arm. Instinctively, Liz buried her face in his shoulder. The images of Tom dying disappeared. "Lizzie, you are safe. You're safe. Everything is going to be okay, I promise. I promise that you are okay."

She didn't believe him at first: not ever. "Tom's gone," she told him, and with Tom had gone all her certainty of a happy life. "He's gone."

"I know," Dad kissed the top of her head. "But you are still here, Lizzie. And you're okay. You're okay."  
Liz heard his heart beating through the warmth of his chest. Odd: her dreams had never been that real before, not about Dad. She dreamed about all his features except that, especially now that he was dead.

"You're still here, Lizzie."

He started humming that old melody. His heartbeat kept perfect time.

* * *

Happy reading!


	4. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of NBC and its related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Liz's already terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night gets worse even after Red comes to the rescue. Character death. Three-shot…potentially in five parts. Only time will tell.

Warnings: mentions of violence and brutality. Some spoilery-ish things.

Author's Notes: This installment took a lot longer than anticipated, and I'm still not sure I handled all the action-y parts well. Still, there's one part left. Thank you to all the readers! See you soon! Enjoy :)

* * *

Chapter Three

The space in the bed next to her was still warm when Liz woke up. Sunlight was peeking through the closed blinds, but there wasn't a beam that could reach the spot on the bed where she'd dreamed about Dad. Red's voice rumbled outside the door like distant thunder, signalling to Liz exactly who had been in her room that night.

She emerged to find him seated with Dembe, fresh coffee on the table, the two looking immaculate. Liz was acutely aware of how little she measured up to not only the finery of the hotel but Red in general. He was always so well-manicured, and she looked as if she'd just seen a ghost. In fact, she felt like a ghost, like she was fading along with the memory of Tom when he was alive.

Dead-Tom? That she remembered all too vividly. "A knife," Liz informed Red and Dembe, catching them both by surprise. "Tom was killed with a knife."  
"Good morning, Lizzie," Red said pleasantly. He gave nothing away: not in his tone, in his face, in his posture. Dembe gave her a small wave. "Coffee?"

"You were in my room," Liz said.

Red, as usual, didn't lie to her. "You were distressed."

"You were _in my bed_," she clarified. There were boundaries she expected Red to cross, but he had entered her dream last night. He had taken the role of her father. He had violated a boundary too close to Liz for her to forgive him. She intended to make him pay for it.

"Lizzie, you were crying out in your sleep, and you wouldn't wake. I was trying to comfort you."

"You had no right."

"You were traumatized."

"You had NO RIGHT."

Red nodded. "The next time your husband is brutally murdered and you happen to walk in on the body, I promise that I will allow you to continue crying out in the night without interference."

"You didn't just comfort me," she snapped. "You took the words right out of my father's mouth. You knew exactly what he'd say."

Stung, Red's tone dropped, "You were dreaming, Lizzie."

She hadn't been dreaming that. Dad sounded like Red last night. Liz didn't just make that up. She glared at him. "Are you my father?"  
"No," Red declared, faster this time than he had over the phone.

"You are a murderer though," she reminded him. "You don't hire the Keres because you don't need them. You're cruel enough all on your own."

As usual, the words had no effect on Red. He was too comfortable in his own skin. But he was always interested in setting her record straight, in reminding her who the real enemy was. "I would never be cruel to you, Lizzie. Now, come, tell me about the knife."

She let him change the subject, conceding temporarily that in his own twisted ways, Red was not cruel towards her. "Something large and sharp," she dropped onto the settee and accepted the cup of coffee that Dembe offered her.

"How?"

"How what?"

"How did they attack him? What happened first?"

The coffee splashed onto the back of her palm. Liz had to put the mug down before she spilled it: her hands were shaking again. "The attack wasn't to kill. Whoever attacked Tom was more concerned with…with cutting him."

"To cause pain."

Liz shook her head. "Just to cut. Pain was incidental."

"Precision cuts?"

"No," she recalled the body. Tom's body had been a mess. "I don't know. He was just sort of…hacked at."

"Well, he would have been fighting back," Red noted.

"Not well. Tom took one martial arts class ever, and he wasn't very good."

"One that he told you about."

"My husband was not…"

"Lizzie," Red leaned towards her, all the conviviality gone from his voice. "I have been content to shield your husband's duplicity from you in the hopes that you would discover it for yourself. However, in lieu of recent events, I suggest you start accepting that Tom was a trained operative."

Liz balled her hands into fists. She wouldn't stand for this argument much longer, but Red was a dog with a bone. He didn't stop chewing till he reached the marrow. "Fine. I believe you."

"No, you don't."

"No, I don't, but you're not going to let me not believe you."

"The person who attacked Tom had a very specific pathology. He was either butchered because of that pathology or because he interfered with his killer's method. Was the blood spatter caused from him fighting back or from him being fought upon?"

Liz didn't say no. She wanted to: Tom was incapable of fighting. She had once tried to teach him some self-defence and he ended up causing himself more damage. There was no way of distinguishing the blood spatter on the walls from the killer's ruthless swings and Tom's supposed grasp of unarmed combat. "I don't know. There was so much blood."

"Were there pieces left behind?"

Her blood ran cold. "Excuse me?"

"The killer: did they leave the pieces behind, or did they take them?"

She gagged. "Who the hell are these people?"

"They are the most deranged minds in the underworld, Lizzie. I told you: psychotics and psychopaths. If the pieces of Tom were taken, we're looking for a butcher and trophy collector named Richard Morrow, currently a patient at St. Elizabeth's Hospital. His handler is a wretched little weasel, Joseph Darvel, an operative I wouldn't mind paying a visit to even recreationally."

Liz didn't ask him to elaborate. She knew Red's definition of recreation wasn't moral. "The parts were left behind."

"So we're looking for a butcher who doesn't keep trophies," Red nodded thoughtfully. "I'm glad we didn't order breakfast."

"Why?"

"Because we're going out. There's a fantastic diner Wisconsin Avenue: best Hollandaise sauce in the city. Their eggs benedict is to die for."

"I don't want breakfast, Red." _I want the man who murdered my husband_.

He was already rising. "I also have it on good authority that the killer we're looking for has breakfast there whenever she's in the city."

Liz nearly choked on her coffee. "She?"

"She," Red corrected. "Virginia Collins or Coll, for short. Fascinating psychological profile: one of those rare, terrifyingly well-adjusted psychopaths who just likes to cut. I would never had guessed she'd sell her allegiances to the CIA, but I suppose it was a convenient way to avoid jail time after all the incidents in the military."

She didn't ask him to elaborate. "I'll get dressed," Liz said, downing the rest of her coffee in a hurry. She rose and headed towards the pile of clothes someone had folded and left out for her. Red, obviously. She turned away to not have to look at them. "Have you put in a call to someone at the Post Office?"

Red laughed, "Why would I do something like that?"

"This woman killed my husband, Red."

"And you expect Harold to lay his hands on her without evidence?"

"I want her behind bars," Liz demanded. The bitter unfairness that her husband's killer was breakfasting freely and Tom was being scraped off the walls and floors of their house hit her all at once. Liz resisted the urge to scream. "I'm getting dressed. Then you're taking me to her. And we're calling the FBI."

The fact that Red didn't answer only irritated her more. Sometimes, she really wished he would lie to her.

* * *

The restaurant was not the upscale establishment Liz anticipated based on Red's description. It was a holdover from the 50s with white tiled walls and navy blue benches. The booths were all equipped with jukeboxes, and Liz could hear several artists competing that morning from various patrons' tables. Red, resplendent as always, still managed to fit in: he scanned the room without stopping, and then made his way over to a booth in the centre where a woman was seated alone.

Coll was not what Liz had expected, even after Red told her Tom's killer was a woman. This psychopath had all the trappings of a hipster librarian: she wore an argyle sweater vest and a hand-knit scarf and sipped on a milkshake as she perused the menu. She belied none of the nature Liz knew had to lying under the surface for her to have murdered Tom so brutally. She didn't even look up when Red gestured for Liz to take a seat on the opposite side of the booth.

The waitress brought them two more menus. Red made a show of opening his. Liz did not. She stared freely at the woman across from her, trying to visualize her gripping a knife. Trying to find the blood stains on the cuffs of her dress shirt.

"What do you want?"

Coll spoke with a flat affect. Liz recognized the tone from her classes on criminology, and all of a sudden understood. The sweater vest, the scarf: this was a cover, a front, the most minimalist of disguises. Just enough to blend in. Well-adjusted psychopath indeed.

Red hummed, still reading the menu, "I'm thinking the eggs benedict. Lizzie, for you?"

She stared at him in disbelief. "We're not here to order breakfast, Red."

"The eggs benedict is good here," Coll agreed, ignoring Liz.

Red ignored Liz, too, for the moment, continuing the front of ordering breakfast. "What are you having?"

"Thinking the blueberry pancakes – a la mode."

"Rough night?"

"Roughest," she shut the menu and looked at Liz. There were wrinkles developing along her lips from keeping them pursed so much. Coll didn't smile, even when she had to: "What are you here for?"

Liz drew a shuddering breath. "You killed my husband."

Not so much as a blink. Coll was frighteningly still. "Yes," she agreed.

"You're under arrest."

"No, I'm not," she replied, sighing.

"The FBI is on their way," Liz threatened, bluffing.

Still no reaction. They might as well have been talking about the weather from how little Coll was invested. She took another sip from her milkshake: bored, detached, apathetic. "I take it you confiscated the evidence," Coll glanced towards Red. Unnervingly, she still hadn't blinked.

"Things go missing so easily in the MPD evidence lock-up," Red commented, closing his own menu. "I'm surprised at you, Coll. From what I understand, you're not one for cover-ups. You like to let your work speak for itself."

"I just killed him. My handler was responsible for the cover-up."

"No one is going to believe that I butchered him," Liz asserted.

"You ready to order?"

The server was giving Liz an odd look. She resisted the urge to ask him to call the police. Coll ordered first, and Red chimed in pleasantly after her. Liz dismissed him, insisting she wasn't hungry.

Coll continued where they left off: "Nobody had to believe you: they just had to believe the evidence. Which, if you've confiscated, is irrelevant. So why are you really here?"

"I'm here to take you in," Liz stared Coll straight in her vacant, inhuman eyes. "Virginia Collins, you're under arrest for the murder of Tom Keen."

Coll's gaze darted to Red. "You didn't tell her."

Liz's heart sank. She glared at Red too. "You didn't tell me what?"

Something passed between Red and Coll, something silent and eerie, something that made Coll blink at long last and look back at Lizzie. Whatever it was, Coll wasn't happy. She was obliging out of unspoken duty. "I'm very sorry, Elizabeth, for my role in framing you for the murder of your husband and that you had to see the mess I made of his body. Had I the capacity for empathy, I'm sure that I would be deeply moved by your current plight and imbue this apology with more feeling."

Red sounded amused, "That was word for word what I told you on the telephone."

"She knows I'm not capable of a genuine apology. You know that, right?"

Liz was too busy glaring at Red. She didn't think she could get any angrier until now. "You brought me here so that my husband's killer would apologize?"

"And to negotiate a different cover-up," Coll added.

Red finally spoke to Liz, "And to confirm his true allegiances. No doubt he put up a fight, Coll, when you tried so valiantly to chop him up."

"He got his hands on me a little."

"Tom didn't stand a chance," Liz growled at Red. She resisted the urge to shove a fork into his neck.

When Liz looked back, Coll was unwrapping her scarf from around her neck. Her skin was rubbed raw all the way to her collarbones, and there were two distinct impressions left from where Tom had tried to strangle her. Liz gulped, centred herself, and replied, "You were attacking him with a knife."

Coll gave her best approximation of an eye roll. She didn't care enough about Liz or her beliefs to have any real stake in the conversation. Still, after covering her injuries again, she rose and inched her shirt up at the waist. A square of bandages cupped her waist just below the ribs. She pried those open to reveal a freshly stitched gash, still oozing. "He knew exactly what he was doing," Coll stated.

The blood stains on the wall took on a more menacing expression. Liz watched the fight play out in her head once more, but this time Tom was a more active participant. He wrestled the knife away from a practiced psychopath. He landed multiple blows before she subdued him again. "You were attacking him with a knife," she said, sharper this time, but the words rang hollow. Tom had to know some martial arts to accomplish that if Coll was as good as her reputation suggested.

Coll returned to her seat. "Your husband was a trained operative."

"Who was he working for?" Red asked.

"You'll have to talk to my handler."

Liz felt her heart switch places with her guts. "This isn't about finding Tom's killer: it never was for you! This was about finding his employer! I should have known…I should have known! You weren't bringing me here to bring her to justice. You wanted to find out who Tom was working for."

"Lizzie-"

"Let me up."

"Lizzie."

"Let me up!"

Red finally moved. Liz stormed away from the booth. She marched over to the front counter where the server was standing. "I need to use a phone, please."

"She doesn't," Red insisted. "We'll go, Lizzie."

"Get the hell away from me," and then, to the server, "Give me your God damn phone."

She punched Ressler's number from memory. He answered on the second ring. "Ressler, it's Keen."

"Jesus, Keen!" he cursed. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Lizzie, don't do this," Red said lowly, his voice barely a whisper. All warning. It was her turn to ignore him.

"There's an APB out on you from the Metropolitan Police Department."

"Yeah, I bet. Look, I have my husband's killer. She's eating breakfast at this place on Windsor. You're running a trace right now, right?"

"Yeah, we can be there, but Cooper isn't going to just let you go."

"He can take me in, as long as he takes her too."

"We've got your location. You keep her there. Oh, and Keen?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry. I really am."

Liz couldn't describe the feeling that overcame her. She wanted so badly to be treated as a normal, grieving widow, wanted for someone to apologize without an ulterior motive. But Ressler didn't acknowledge Tom's double-life when he apologized. He couldn't capture the complexity of the moment in two simple words. Only Red seemed to contend with the difficulty of Liz still loving Tom and confronting his duplicity.

She managed to thank Ressler before hanging up. Looking back at the restaurant, she found Coll seated pleasantly at her table, stabbing at pancakes. A plate of eggs benedict sat untouched on the table.

* * *

The first black vehicle showed up just as Coll finished her breakfast. She paid as much heed to that as she had to Liz's visit. She tucked some bills under her plate to cover the bill, picked up her messenger bag, and walked past Liz without so much as a glance.

"You're coming with me," Liz said, grabbing her arm.

Coll yanked herself from Liz's grasp and march through the front door with her head held high.

"HEY," Liz trailed after her onto the sunny sidewalk. FBI Agents were spilling out of the vehicles. Coll, however, showed no sign of stopping. Liz grabbed her gun. A chorus of shouts erupted from the vehicles behind her. "STOP RIGHT THERE!"

Ressler called to her over the din. Liz ignored him. "I will shoot you."

All the excitement made her forget basic psychology though. Psychopaths didn't respond to threats, and Coll, true to form, kept on walking.

Liz's hands shook. "That's her, Ressler!" she shouted, tossing a glance over her shoulder. There were no less than four agents behind her, and Ressler was the only one whose weapon was pointed down.

"We have her," he insisted. "Put the gun down, Liz, it's over."

She wanted to shoot. She should shoot. Tom was dead, his killer was getting away, and all Red cared about was his own interests. Liz felt her finger tightening against the trigger. Her whole being got wrapped up in the strain to actually shoot.

The thought that Tom was obviously keeping secrets, telling lies, and leading a secret life struck her alongside an explosion of fire in her shoulder. Liz's gun tumbled from her limp fingers. She staggered away from it, landing against the wall of the restaurant. Distantly, Ressler shouted at another agent to put her gun down.

Blood drained from the fresh wound on her arm. Liz saw stars.

"Keen," Ressler pressed a hand against the wound. "Just take it easy. You're okay. You're okay."

Liz blinked to clear her vision. Clouds were collecting in her eyes. She could see Coll less than half a block away, stopped at last by agents who had just arrived. They ushered her into a waiting car. "You got her," she breathed a sigh of relief.

Ressler's brow rose. "Those aren't our people," he noted sadly.

The car pulled away from the curb. Liz crumpled. The fog caught her; she let it carry her away.

* * *

Happy reading! One more chapter to go.


	5. Epilogue

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of NBC and its related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Liz's already terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night gets worse even after Red comes to the rescue. Character death. Three-shot…potentially in five parts. Only time will tell.

Warnings: mentions of violence and brutality. Some spoilery-ish things.

Author's Notes: A short, final installment to wrap up loose ends! Thank you for the support. I didn't intend for this to take as long as it did, but there ended up being a lot of Liz and Red I wanted to unpack. I hope you've enjoyed the ride!

This chapter is AU-er as of "Lord Baltimore" if Naomi is who Berlin thinks she is. I have Red suggesting that his story to Madeline Pratt wasn't as bogus as he suggested it to be, given who and what the Keres do. Spoilers for that episode then…kind of. Yeesh, this show has such a fuzzy relationship with the truth.

* * *

Epilogue

The fog receded to reveal a blanched ceiling intermittently shocked with fluorescent lights. Liz blinked in time with their appearance. Her head was pounding, her ears were ringing, and the sudden flares of light was too much for her to bear at the time.

Ressler bobbed in and out of her sightline, as did a few other, unrecognizable faces wearing masks. Liz closed her eyes to the sound of Ressler's voice. She was in a hospital. Something, something, something blood loss. Shock. The ghost of a handcuff bit at her wrist. Ressler called to her. She would be alright, she was okay. "Okay," Liz decided and passed out cold.

Waking was easier the next time, when the stitches were in place, the unit of blood had transfused, and the handcuffs were off. Ressler was waiting for her. He leaned close to the bed as her eyes opened. "Hey," he said. "How you feeling?"

"Who shot me?"

"Don't look at me: my weapon was lowered," Ressler forced himself to smile. "I can tell you that the agent who did it is very, very sorry and receiving a stern lecture from Harold about trigger-happiness."

Small comfort. Liz's shoulder burned as she tried to move. The bullet had ripped through the outer layer of her muscle, a clean through-and-through, but she would be off-duty and in physio for a while. Such a fitting end for the worst twenty-four hours she'd ever had the displeasure of experiencing. "What's happened?" she had to know.

His sigh told her that perhaps the bullet wouldn't be the worst part of her day. "Not much: the kitchen knife found by the MPD disappeared from lock-up sometime last night." Liz didn't bother mentioning that Red had confiscated it. "However, the MPD has received evidence that you were out of the house when Tom was murdered. You're in the clear, Keen."

Liz focused on the ceiling. Her shoulder throbbed in time with her heart. This whole bloody affair was going to be swept under the rug, and Reddington, under the guise of helping her, was letting those responsible get away with it. And even if he hadn't interfered, the CIA wasn't about to hand over an illicit operative to the FBI. If Coll worked for the CIA. Liz suspected, strictly based on Red's connections that there was a gap in management between the Keres and the Company.

As if he could hear her thoughts, Ressler asked, "Who was that woman you were after?"

Liz shook her head. She didn't want to remember Coll sliding into the black vehicle and disappearing. "No one."

"You said she-"

"Whoever she is, she's long gone now." Coll would disappear; Red would be of no help. Liz was back at the beginning, with the added tragedy of knowing who murdered her husband and not being able to do anything about it.

"With who? Were those Reddington's people?"

Liz didn't speak to that. "She's a contract assassin – loosely affiliated with the CIA."

"Why would the CIA want your husband killed?"

"I don't know," Liz admitted, but the sad truth was she kind of did. An illicit operative spying on a federal agent with ties to one of National Security's newest and most sensitive asset was a no-brainer kind of target for the CIA. Not that Liz wanted to admit that Tom was a secret agent. "When can I get out of here?"

"Whenever you want. You're supposed to lie low for a while. The press is all over this," Ressler considered his next words very carefully. "I've got a spare bedroom, if you need a place to crash."

Liz thought that was sweet. She kind of wanted to say no, but the thought occurred to her that she had nowhere else to go. The house was a crime scene. Red wasn't an option. Still, she felt it only fair to dissuade Ressler, "I don't know: I'm a mess right now. First my dad, then Tom…I'll be a terrible roommate."

"I'm not asking you to move in, Keen," Ressler rolled his eyes, a laugh building in his tone.

She smiled sadly and nodded, "Thanks, Ressler."

* * *

Liz woke with a start. The bed was cold. She patted Tom's side feverishly, willing his warmth back into the sheets, but all she felt was the chill of his absence. Tom was gone, and she was at Ressler's. She was a single woman in a double bed. He hadn't just walked away in the night; he was gone.

"Good morning, Lizzie."

She nearly started out of her own skin. The gun under her pillow was gone. Red kept it perched in his lap with the clip removed just in case she managed to snatch it away. Liz scrambled towards the headboard, glowering at him. "Get out," she ordered.

"I'll be leaving soon," he assured her. "Donald will be back with coffee and breakfast soon. I just wanted to check on how you were doing. I wouldn't have abandoned you at the diner, Lizzie, if I knew that one of Harold's agents would fire."

"I'm fine."

"Your dressing needs changing."

"I'll change it. Get out."

"Would it help if I apologized, Lizzie?"

"What, like Coll apologized?" she used the pain from her shoulder to spur the conversation. Her voice went ragged and desperate in a way that she had been happy to ignore for the past two days at Ressler's apartment. "You think that social convention will help me right now. At least Coll was honest. She has no remorse. But you? You still have empathy, Reddington. You still care about me. That's why you didn't tell me about Tom directly and why you didn't want me to be alone after he was murdered. But you aren't sorry. In your own sick, twisted way you're happy that all this has happened. Tom's out of the way and you got the name of his employer, so don't you dare apologize to me."

Red's face bore just the slightest trace of hurt, like he actually needed to recover from what Liz had said. He made the same face after she accosted him at the Stewmaker's cabin, immediately before revealing he'd been Mr. Hyde all along: "By saving your life." Monstrous as he was, Red carried Liz alongside the last of his humanity, so she still had the power to pierce what little remained. "I know what it's like to come home and have your entire world shattered, Lizzie," he began.

She wanted to stop him. Wanted him to go. Wanted to go on believing him a murderer and a monster. The world hadn't made Red this bad; Red had been so bad that the world just had to follow.

Except that wasn't true. Not in the slightest. And Red wasn't going to let her forget that. "I know what it's like to see rooms painted red with the blood of loved ones. I know what it's like to be left alone, wandering, in shock over the cruelty of the world. You are right to call me a monster," he conceded her as much, reveled in his reputation, in fact, "and I am not disappointed that Tom has been eliminated. However, I am deeply sorry for your loss, Lizzie."

The genuineness of the apology bowled her over to the point where Liz almost didn't catch what Red was actually telling her. What he in his usual way was hiding in plain sight. "Christmas 1990," the profile began to construct itself in her mind, unfolding as the details fell into place. "Was that the Keres, Red?"  
She knew better than to think that he would answer, but Liz couldn't deny the scenario made sense. Red's family slaughtered by a covert branch of the CIA. Him arriving home to carnage before disappearing into the criminal subterfuge. It explained how he knew about the Keres without ever having hired them, how he understood their methods, and his disdain for the handlers. The killers themselves would be blameless in Red's eyes, victims themselves of an aberrant brain chemistry. But their handlers, their death dealers? Red had special hells reserved for them.

He didn't answer her. He didn't have to…or did he? "You are never going to tell me what happened," Liz said redundantly. "But you are sorry my husband is dead."

"I will never lie to you," Red promised: equally as redundant.

Liz nodded, believing him at an implicit level. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes."

He made her ask: "Who was Tom working for?"

Red wasn't inclined to tell her, not at first, so Liz added, "Come on, Red: you owe me."

His eyes grazed over her wounded shoulder, smouldering and softening at the sight of the bandages, and finally, he decided to share. "Berlin," Red said, "Tom was working for Berlin." He handed her back the gun. "We have work to do."

Liz hesitated, half-considering putting a slug in his shoulder for the one in hers. Then they'd be even. She weighed the weapon in her palm and thought better of it. She would have plenty of time to get Red back if she wanted. For now, Liz wanted to know about Tom. She kicked off the blankets. "Let's go."

* * *

Happy reading!


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